She shook her head. There wasn’t any reason for it that she could see.
“Does the man know horses?”
Peyton kicked the dirt with her boot. “Yes.” It was an inarguable fact. Red Callahan, despite her annoyance with his cocky attitude and know-it-all status, really did know his way around getting the best from a horse. She’d seen it in person, year after year at local and national rodeos. And more than that, people trusted him. If Red signed off on a horse, cowboys came running.
Okay, the more she thought about it . . .
“But I don’t like him.” At least, she didn’t care for his attitude. And even more than that, she hated her need for him. Hated being the one in need. She preferred an even playing field.
Arby tipped his hat up, raised a brow, and said, “More than one cowboy you know has an arrogant attitude. Never stopped you from mooning over cowboys in the past.” He went back to his polish.
“I do not moon.” She flushed at the memory of her younger self, infatuated with any cowboy who had a good seat and good hands. “Shouldn’t that be a qualification? That the trainer and the owner get along?”
“Fishin’.”
So she was. But Red’s attitude hurt her pride more than she wanted to admit. “I have calls to make.”
Peyton forced herself to walk slowly across the way to the main house, hoping the good quarter mile would cool her down. Not quite, but by the time she reached the kitchen, her anger wasn’t biting either. She stepped in to smell something mouthwatering and welcomed the reason to procrastinate.
In the heart of the home, she found longtime housekeeper and cook Emma. The woman who had all but raised the three Muldoon siblings while Mama was off on another bender and Daddy was busy keeping things together. Short, petite, and frail-looking, Emma was anything but. She could take over a platoon of soldiers and have them whimpering like babies in minutes. A quality almost necessary to live in the rough and rugged, male-dominated west.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Roast.” Emma didn’t turn from the counter where she chopped vegetables. “And you know what time dinner is, so don’t think you can come slinking in here and start snacking early. You’ll ruin your appetite and my work will go to waste.”
Peyton bit back a smile. It was the same speech she’d heard since she was a toddler. She held up her hands in surrender. “Wasn’t going to grab anything. Just wanted to say hi.”
At that, Emma turned and smiled. Several years older than Peyton’s own mother had been, Emma was a comfortable, maternal port in the storm, and Peyton had no problem walking into her outstretched arms. She’d take support wherever she could get it.
“I have to call Trace and Bea,” she mumbled into Emma’s shoulder.
“Why?” Emma pulled back and stared at her. “God knows they should have been here when your Mama passed. Not for her. But for you.” Emma smoothed Peyton’s hair back and studied her. “Do you need them?”
“Apparently,” she bit off. With a sigh, she stepped back and shrugged. Then with a grin, she grabbed a cookie from the cooling rack and darted away before Emma could reach out and slap her fingers.
On the way up to the office, she munched on the cookie and thought about how she was going to convince her brother and sister to waive their veto rights. But first she had to find them.
Red answered his cell phone to just to make the ringing stop.
“What.”
“Well, isn’t that the sweetest of greetings?”
“Dad?” Hello wake-up call. He shifted up so his back was against the headboard and blinked at the clock on the nightstand. Three fifty-eight in the morning. Joy. “I don’t have bail money.” He did. But that wasn’t the point.
The loud barking laugh blasted the last dregs of sleep from his brain. “No bail necessary. Not this time. Though I wouldn’t mind a few thousand to get me through until—”
“No.” Red was firm on this, as usual. “No money. Wait.” He sat up a little straighter. “Until what?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you.” His father sighed the sigh of the long weary. “I’m calling about a job.”
“I don’t have a job for you.” Same old song and dance from dear ole dad.
“Son, you’re not hearing right. I mean a job for you. I’ve been working out here in Idaho on a sweet spread.”
Wonder if you bothered to mention your gambling habit to the sucker who hired you.
“Boss is pretty impressed with having Red Callahan’s old man on the payroll.”
That explained it. “I told you to stop using my name for things.” Having made a name for himself in the horse world gave him multiple advantages. But it also had its drawbacks. Somehow, his father managed to find every single one.